Sacrifice
by PinkRangerV
Summary: When you become a Ranger, you give up a lot. AU. Companion piece to Unity.


A\N: So, this and _Unity_ are going to be companion pieces, set in my headcanon. A third fic is going to come out as soon as I'm done with the first chapter. I would also like to note at this point that formatting is the ultimate evil, and anyone interested in becoming part of a Ranger team to fight it can leave their pertinent information with the nearest recruiter. Or Tommy Oliver. Take your pick. :p

* * *

The Rangers give up a lot.

That's to be expected. Being a Ranger is a noble tradition, and the duties of a Ranger are somewhere between 'superhero', 'keeper of the peace', and 'soldier'. To give up a normal life in exchange for the chance to fly the Zords is the dream of every child; to do so in exchange for wearing the suit and making a difference is the dream of every cadet.

The Power Rangers have more than enough to make up for their loss. Those they serve with are their morpher-siblings. They band together, and a Ranger will always find friends in other Rangers. High Command finally built Home One, a space station large enough to contain two entire mountain ranges, not so much to organize the Galactic Ranger Corps as just to have a meeting place big enough to contain the Power Rangers, and later the Primaries and Secondaries as well, those unfortunate souls whose genetic material is perfectly and near-perfectly able to bond to at least one type of Power focus.

But the Power Rangers themselves are not usually Primaries or Secondaries, who are born with the instincts that the Power can grasp and twist to their own purposes. They are ordinary beings who wanted to fly Zords or make a difference or even just further their own knowledge, and when they begin training they give up a lot. The public knows that, and accepts that being a Power Ranger changes you permanently.

But they never quite realize just how much the Rangers sacrifice.

*PR*PR*PR*

Power Rangers don't go to Med Bay.

They don't go to doctors. They don't go see nice healers. No matter what the language, situation, or planet, they will never willingly let anyone of the medical profession touch them unless it's a direct teammate.

It gets a lot of complaints, especially since Home One has a rather nice medical system set up, which it can afford to do because genetic primaries tend to have superpowers, and letting them become experts in their field means they don't do stupid things like try to strap on morphers. Everyone likes the balance of the Grid, after all, and Earth doesn't count because it's a publicity stunt, it's not _real_.

(That it is not only real, but Tommy Oliver is enough of a living legend to contain the problems of superpowered Rangers, isn't really information the public needs, so High Command just shrugs and lets events play out, as long as Tommy Oliver doesn't lose their comm number in case of emergencies.)

If a normal, active, healthy Power Ranger walks into a room where medicine is practiced, they shiver, turn around, and walk out, making a mental note to kill whoever left the sign for the mess hall in the wrong place. Injured Rangers can have almost any reaction, and if they have to stay overnight, the healers learn very quickly to let their teammates stand right next to them, or even snuggle with them in the same bed, or the Ranger will be a sobbing wreck by the next day. It's an oft-repeated joke, even among civilians, that the best way to kill a Ranger is by locking them in a hospital room.

Most of the populace just thinks it's a joke, and that the Rangers are really just healthy, active young people who don't want to get medical because healthy, active young people would prefer blowing up bad guys and driving giant robots to anything. They also snicker a bit at the very-forced campaigns, on some planets, of Rangers trying to convince young children to eat their vegetables or wear helmets. Experienced parents claim you can see the crossed fingers (or whatever tell the species uses).

But Power Rangers do not like medical, and this is why:

When they walk into that room, and sit down, there are no obvious threats. Nothing is apparently wrong. And everyone claims this is a place of healing.

Then the doctor picks up a sharp, shiny object.

The Power is a mysterious force. It derives from the Eltarian views of magic, that all magic is only an undiscovered science, but that was a doomed idea as soon as Tallians, who naturally have more magic than your average High Priest in their little finger, got ahold of it. By this point, with so many other species added in and so many common misconceptions, the Power is the ultimate mystery. But it is very clear on a few things. For example, if a Ranger is in a dangerous situation, that Ranger will fight. The Ranger won't be able to think straight until the Power decides that they're out of danger. Friend, foe...the only distinction the Power permits them to make is 'civilian'. Even a Ranger's teammates are fair game.

But the Power Rangers have not been Rangers forever. The Power works best with Primaries, which is why Primaries are offered safe haven on Home One, where no one will force them into being a Ranger. Those who are chosen have, indeed, a choice. They do not follow the Power blindly.

And so, no matter what sharp, shiny object the doctor picks up, the Power screams...and the Ranger ignores it.

Twenty to thirty is the age range of Ranger recruits. Twenty to thirty years of parents, friends, and even the Ranger themselves knowing wholeheartedly that doctors are friends, even when there's a needle.

It's just enough to override the Power. But it's nowhere near enough to silence it.

So, when a Power Ranger is treated by a medical professional, they feel the sort of abject panic they would feel if an enemy held them prisoner. They know that something is coming. A needle will slip under the skin, drawing blood or injecting something; a bandage will be wrapped around a wound; a scan will be performed.

And they know every single way it can-no, _will_-kill them.

The needle will draw blood to perform sadistic experiments, or inject an agonizing and fatal poison. The bandage will be coated in one of the many acids that burn only flesh, never cotton. The 'scanner' will expose them to lethal doses of radiation.

If it were only straps that held them down, the Ranger could escape. It's why the Power gives them such a high boost of adrenaline. Maybe the Ranger, if all else failed, could fall back on the most primal instincts and beg for their lives. But what holds them in place is stronger than any leather or steel. An entire society and decades of conditioning are impossible to resist.

They cannot make a sound. Their pride will not let them cry or beg. And on some level they don't even understand why they're so afraid-they've never been afraid of doctors before. They simply sit there, and allow a doctor free and full reign over their bodies, even when there is pain or discomfort, and try not to shiver because it would make it harder for the same person victimizing them to slip the needle in or patch up the wound.

Some Rangers do very well with Medical. If they are in places with no hope or light, the assignments that very few ever receive because even fewer return, they will submit to nearly anything and not even realize what is happening, because all of life is this torture for them, and they have channeled it to the side of good.

(Hopefully. After all, everyone breaks.)

But they are few and far between. There was some excitement, a while back, over a potential cure for this extreme reaction, because most of the Earth 'Sixth Rangers' seemed devoid of it, but then the scientists took a second look at exactly who they were studying, winced, and abandoned the project.  
For the moment, they have no answers. They can warn healers, and try to warn the Rangers, and try to give Rangers themselves a bit of first-aid training so they aren't in as often, but at the end of the day, a Power Ranger will never willingly step into a medical office.

For them, they might as well die.

*PR*PR*PR*

Rangers lose their family.

They have their morpher-siblings, of course. The idea of the Power, at least as far as scientists can tell, was that Primaries would set aside their biological families, who could well be villains (actually, looking at Earth as a case study, are _more than likely_ to be the same people they're fighting), and embrace a new, safer family.

It's a safety feature.

It works for Chosen Rangers, too. At first High Command was determined to make up for the mistakes of their predecessors. Rangers and cadets would be allowed to call home as often as they liked (outside of training). They could exchange letters, receive very-well-screened care packages. Nothing would stop the Rangers from having off-duty lives, and those off-duty lives would prevent _davaki_ Rangers (the common translation was 'Evil Rangers', but a better was 'broken' or 'mentally ill', since all too often _davaki_ Rangers occurred when a Ranger was simply pushed a little too far).

But then they realized something was happening.

Almost like clockwork, the cadets would be totally fine, right up until a week after they received their morphers. Then calls would halve themselves, whether the Rangers were assigned yet or not. Then that too would be halved. In less than a month, the Ranger would usually speak of their family as if they were all dead.

The scientist ran some tests, on both Rangers and family. Apparently, it wasn't just speaking as if they were dead. Both the family members and Ranger _thought_ of them, on an unconscious level, as long gone.

The Power was separating them.

The scientists argued for trying to change this-after all, the Power was malleable, to an extent-but High Command nixed the idea, added a few official pamphlets and free therapy visits for anyone the Power couldn't quite catch, and left it at that. Messing with the Power was a tricky proposition. The common saying was that the Grid did not enjoy being f-ed with, and if you got caught, it would f- with you.

(High Command added a memo about telling the cadets to watch their language.)

The scientists grumbled mightily about this, until they started seeing a trend. Every successive generation of Ranger cadets was losing contact earlier.

Not the same dramatic loss, just a few less letters here and there, but it was noticeable, and more than that, this trend belonged not to the Power, but to the cadets themselves.

It took a while to figure out, since a civil war re-erupted midway through the study, which always caused a bit of chaos. But the scientists were awed all the same when they did.

It seemed that, while Home One had gone on much as normal, the rest of the galaxy_ hadn't_. In fact, the galaxy had become quite polarized. One of the many ways the Power worked was through a light\shade\dark system, a sort of personality type that determined what kind of symbols you used if you worked with magic. Everyone had one of the three, and Home One generally considered it like having green eyes versus pink.

But in the rest of the galaxy, the system had become very important indeed.

The Eltarian Empire had renamed itself the Council of Light; the Dark Court, which had always been the Dark Court, began bragging about its superior intelligence and artistry. In response, the Council of Light decided to 'civilize' the Dark Court.

That explained where the civil war had come from.

Shades, of course, belonged to neither side, and thus were hated. Someone born Dark in the Council of Light would be given 'therapy' to overcome it; someone born Light in the Dark Court would be slotted into the appropriate social niche; but both sides agreed that Shades were inherently traitors and snakes. The Council of Light legally enslaved them, passing laws that made them perpetually minors in the 'guardianship' of their nearest relative, and the Dark Court relied on social pressure to force them into behaving as if either Dark or Light.

And that hate only perpetuated the idea that the other side was pure evil.

When a cadet came to Home One, they encountered a culture where Dark, Light, and Shade determined absolutely nothing. Everyone got woken up early, everyone crawled through mud, and everyone ate like pigs at the mess hall. More than that, when a cadet came to Home One, they ate food from any planet they liked. They spoke in a rapid-fire mix of Eltarian, Tallian, and Daemon, the three major trade languages, a mix that had been officially dubbed by linguists as an abomination. (The cadets and Rangers then started a campaign to legally name the language 'Abomination' in both the Council and Court, with enough glee to make High Command Red facepalm and High Command Black burst out laughing.) They played new card games and heard new stories.

The scientists realized that, when a cadet came to Home One, they weren't breaking with their family because of the Power anymore. They were breaking with their family because their family seemed like racist assholes.

(High Command would have added a memo that Science Division needed to watch its language, except that they agreed with the sentiment.)

And in that environment, when the Power was already binding you to your team, when you and your team did everything together, when no one was making you contact your family...well, it wasn't hard to see where the cadets were coming from.

And it wasn't hard to see just how dangerous that was. Especially not if you knew anything about fascism and how it originated.

High Command agreed, and a new system was instituted. When a cadet came into Home One, they broke contact with their family-even those who flunked out of the system were only given enough money to buy passage anywhere, not sent straight to their biological relatives. Instead, the cadet was given a white, black, or gray uniform; a name tag in their birth language and alphabet; and two lesson programs. One was an in-depth study of their birth culture (which, if you were Daemon or Garr!kla'ti, translated into 'sitting around playing games with the instructors because you had racial memories anyway'). The other was a study of the _other_ cultures. Local, galactic, _anything_ a Ranger might encounter.

And pretty soon their own views became secondary to a single idea: That although they had sworn allegiance to a new culture and country on Home One, all cultures, and all people, were worth defending.

When a Ranger joined the Corps, they gave up their family.

It's a safety feature.

*PR*PR*PR*

Names were important to Rangers.

It was sewn into their uniforms, of course. Everyone wore a name tag. And for those first few months of training, the only thing a cadet wanted was to _forget_ their name. They wanted to earn a title instead: Power Ranger.

When they did, they contained their excitement, but whenever a civilian who couldn't read the name tag sewn into the now-colored uniform called them 'Green Ranger' or 'Violet Ranger', they felt a private elation. They _were_ wearing the uniform. They _were_ flying the Zord. They _were_ making a difference.

And then there were more missions.

And more.

Rangers can do quite a lot, and it doesn't bother them unduly. Their bodies don't seem to remember past injuries, and they heal remarkably quickly from the physical damage of any warrior. But psychologically, it's a different story.

High Command was careful not to burn Rangers out. There weren't a lot compared to the galactic population, and although they _did_ have a traditional army, the galaxy was split at a fairly even rate, and both sides were quite a bit bigger. It was the abilities and training of the Power Rangers that kept the Corps as mediators. After all, you could laugh at, and even crush a normal army, but an army of people who were invulnerable, thought on their feet, and each, individually, could raise rebellions that toppled empires? Splitting up just one Ranger team had once brought an end to a twelve-system dynasty in less than a week.

But although they had power, training, cause, and the zealot's fire, a Ranger eventually heard his, her, or it's title enough often to make them hate it.

Very few people could read nametags. Fewer still called a Ranger by their name. And so, slowly, a Ranger's name became forgotten as they traveled through the galaxy and righted wrongs. Some Rangers had one or two moments where they honestly forgot their own name.

But their teammates didn't. And anyone living on Home One could read the nametag.

So while for the rest of the galaxy, it was a sign of respect to address a Ranger by their designation, the inverse was true for Home One. The word 'Ranger' was almost rude to speak aloud. Names were shouted and whispered and laughed.

Eventually, Home One's younger Rangers began to consider their birth names as something magical, a true name that described their soul. They revealed it only to those they trusted most; to the rest of the world, they took on their designation.

The scientists were a bit worried about the social ramifications of that, but High Command offered them a new particle accelerator to lose the data. Galactic civil war was one thing, but they weren't going to touch a cadet superstition with a ten-foot pole.

To outsiders, a Power Ranger has no name.

To a Ranger, a name is everything.

*PR*PR*PR*

A Power Ranger is designed for a war zone.

Primaries and Secondaries get the brunt of it. They have heightened instincts, easily-triggered adrenaline, instinctive fighting abilities. While they have dramatic talents, talents that gave rise to a common saying that a Ranger cadet could see rivals to the great masters...on a 'fresher wall, they also tended to enjoy martial arts and physical activities just a _bit_ more than a normal being of their species.

For them, the combination worked well. They created a self-contained civilization that everyone on Home One enjoyed-and, in doing so, made Home One completely self-sufficient. But for an active Ranger, it was a bit more of a problem.

The first mission was seared into a Ranger's brain. High Command had tried to remove this feature by sending Rangers on a ridiculously easy mission the first time, then an insanely-hard one the second, so the Power would be forced to adjust and _not_ traumatize their Rangers, thank you very much, but it hadn't worked. The Power was designed as a one-use instrument. Teams were meant to fight exactly one enemy.

That first mission, therefore, was a critical summary of what said enemy could do and what the Ranger needed to prepare to fight against. So the Power took the simplest route and traumatized the incident into the Ranger's memory.

It was a form of PTSD that no one had ever seen before, but it worked, smacking the Rangers emotionally into exactly the sort of enemy the first mission dictated they fight. But it also left some people with more classic PTSD, C-PTSD, or whatever trauma illness their species was prone to. So High Command, once again, made the sort of tactical decision that left everyone drowning their sorrows at the bar afterwards.

The first mission was pre-arranged by High Command in a special free-room at the docks. No one knew the free-room existed but Rangers who had been in it. Other free-rooms, yes-a virtual simulator that anyone could program as anything was obviously the ideal training room on a space station with only so many climates available-but this one was highly classified.

A Ranger was extensively tested during their time as a second-level cadet. They were given a numerical designation for a team, and a patch indicating their Color, but all of it was only a 'maybe'. Some cadets went through ten in a week. One had set the record at twenty in the same day before a Primary Ranger, who would instinctively be able to tell which team and Color the cadet had, was called in. (It turned out an intern had hit the wrong button a week ago, and the computers were just completely scrambled. But the record was set in stone.) Cadets sometimes stayed at second-level after their training was complete for a week or two just because they had to finish the testing.

But by the end, High Command knew exactly where their career path would go. They knew if the Ranger was meant for simple, straightforward tasks; if they could handle the dangers of active war zones; if they were meant to follow a secret, dark path known only to those talented in espionage.

And the first mission was designed to reflect the pinnacle of their career.

It was hell. There were very few Rangers who escaped that. Even those with the simplest, brightest careers had an extreme emotional transformation. That was the point. And after this first trauma, a Ranger was taken out of the free-room, shown what had happened, and given their second assignment based on data gathered in the free room (because that one, final test kept a lot of people from dying).

And then, for the next few weeks, they and their team were in the field nonstop, building up to that pinnacle.

Training Rangers involved a lot of work. But the results were worth it. The Rangers mediated wars, saved lives, and formed treaties. They were, at times, the only things standing between an intragalactic civil war-and yet they could turn two seconds later to a little girl with her pet stuck in a tree, and once they were done, feel just as proud of pulling out the pet as saving the galaxy. Maybe more so.

But the scar stayed.

After that first mission, it was natural to be...jumpy. Teams stayed closer. There were nightmares. Intense memories, not quite enough to be called flashbacks.  
And all of those were reminders from the Power.

Rangers were designed for a war zone. High Command's job was to fight the Power for every second of that, and every scrap of soul they could save from it.

But they had yet to win.

*PR*PR*PR*

The Rangers of Home One were _obsessed_ with _Tommy Oliver, Power Ranger of Earth_.

It was a holodrama, of course. When High Command Green had demanded to know what the unholy hell the social-science department was _good_ for, they'd replied by informing him that the next fad would be a holodrama (and High Command had sent out an internal memo reminding everyone that they were the inspiration of a galaxy so could they _please_ watch their language). So that had jinxed it. A Primary with a talent for writing plays and holos had been up late one night looking around for a good, edgy story, and had stumbled across High Command's memos about a new group of Rangers created by the very-powerful-but-also-thought-he-was-a-wizard Zordon of Eltar.

And suddenly, that Primary had become very, very rich.

High drama! Mind control! Ordinary people, thrust into the spotlight! Moral crises and friendship! This show had _everything_, and best of all, since it was a television show, the truth could be...edited a little.

For example, the good guy always won.

It wasn't very well-realized, since writing is never really something you can dissect well without historical and cultural context, but that was the entire reason the Rangers latched onto it. Tommy Oliver _won_. The bad guys _lost_. Was there drama, pain, angst? Of course. But at the end of the season, Tommy Oliver emerged smiling with his morpher-siblings, and all was well.

That didn't happen in real life.

Bad guys got away. They were well-connected or rich enough so the choice was between a minor atrocity or a major political upheaval. Sometimes they were just insane. And sometimes it was worse when you won-when you had people who were so fundamentally broken they were little more than raving animals, and all you could do was watch quietly through the glass as the med team put them down.

(Capital punishment didn't exist on Home One. But the Council of Light and Dark Court occasionally wanted it badly enough so High Command was forced to comply. The arresting Ranger tended to watch. High Command tried to discourage this, but recognized when it was futile.)

But Tommy Oliver's kills were fantasy. You could cry and feel horrible and angry, because it was just a holodrama. And anyway, they'd written in that he just sent them to the 'Abyss of Evil' when a fan asked.

So now even drill sergeants swore in English, and 'Aw, man!' was heard across the mess hall every so often. Everyone loved_ Tommy Oliver, Power Ranger of Earth_.

It was so much better than reality.

*PR*PR*PR*

Ultimately, the point of being a Ranger isn't what you get or give.

A Ranger is many things. Diplomat, healer, warrior. A life-changer, for good or ill. Their actions affect the entire universe, and rightly so.

These are the people everyone can count on to be heroes.

And a Ranger, at the end of the day, is a hero.


End file.
